Terrible 4G and 5G speeds

[Itsmearron]

Hi, 

My speeds have never been great with EE on either 4G or 5G I have been with EE for many many years (around 18 years) and had multiple phones during this time and all seems to have struggled with internet speeds when using 4G and 5G.... I went out this weekend around my local town for a few beers with some friends we visited multiple pubs and it was impossible to use my phones 4g and 5g network for nearly the entire time that I was out, pages wouldn't load at all or long 10 to 15 minutes waits for basic pages to load. This is with full 4G signal in some places and 3 bars of 5G in other places. It's getting to the stage where I am honestly thinking about swapping networks, I see friends using their phones to stream videos and I can't even load Google to do a basic search. I checked the coverage checker online and it says it's a good coverage with nearly full 4G my opinion would say it should say shocking coverage. 

I have 5 mobile contracts with you and also look after my parents 2 contracts too and all 7 of us struggle constantly, it's become a bit of a family joke that our network is still coal powered and our internet speeds are always shocking.

Is it SIM card issues or is the network really that bad in my local town compared to other network providers ?

[bristolian]

The coverage checker predicts the quality of received signal - the data speeds are a different measurement and the coverage webtool makes no attempt here.

Check which networks your friends & acquaintances are on. All networks have good and bad areas, it maybe that you're in a location where EE is more congested than others. Nationally, EE consistently performs well and others don't - but there'll always be local variations.

Out of interest, where are you?

[Itsmearron]

It happens wherever i am, a couple of weeks back I was in Conwy and struggled the entire weekend that I was there. My friends that were with us were on Vodafone and didn't seem to have a problem at all.

This week we were in Stafford and same issues again, struggled the entire time I was in Stafford town centre. Different Friends with us were on Three network and once again they seemed to have fine coverage and good network streaming videos. I tried loading bet365, Instagram , Facebook and tiktok multiple times and couldn't load anything, my son was also with us, he is one of the other contracts on my account and also couldn't load anything,  It seems EE network is always the worst network out of all of the networks wherever we are, no matter where we go EE internet 4G and 5G seems terrible, very poor service.

I have put up with it for years but it's annoying when I see the better quality networks that everyone else is using.

[bristolian]

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@Itsmearron wrote:

It happens wherever i am, a couple of weeks back I was in Conwy and struggled the entire weekend ....This week we were in Stafford and same issues again, struggled the entire time I was in Stafford town centre...It seems EE network is always the worst network out of all of the networks wherever we are, no matter where we go EE internet 4G and 5G seems terrible, very poor service

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If the issues are happening over such a wide geographical area, it tends to suggest a phone fault. It also makes network issues harder to believe, in the absence of customer complaint volumes that would be expected from such widespread poor performance.

What have you done to rule out your phone as a cause of the issues? Every network has good & bad areas, but EE does consistently perform well on national benchmarking and thus perceived issues across wide areas tend to arouse suspicion.

A 2way SIM-swap with a working phone would be an interesting exercise.

[Itsmearron]

It's not a device issue, I have explained that my phone, my wife's phone and my son's phone all experience the same issues at the same locations. All other networks at these locations appear to work fine. You can try to adapt the narrative to suite but my customer experience is that we all suffer terrible internet on EE when out and about. Looking at other posts on this forum I am certainly not the only customer that feels this way. When people raise the issues it's easier for you to try to blame the individual or their device than it is to try and resolve the issue. 

If I pay for a service that works well, I tell people that the service i am getting with that provider is great, like my home broadband package with virgin media it's amazing...., but if I pay for a service that is terrible, then I will also tell the truth and this service is pretty damn poor. It's lucky I don't need the 4G and 5G too often and mostly use WiFi or I would have had to have switched to a decent provider and left EE because the 4G and 5G on EE really is terrible.